


Professionals, Not Princesses

by EmperorNorton150



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Post-Canon, Reminiscing, War, mutual respect between former enemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27945149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmperorNorton150/pseuds/EmperorNorton150
Summary: With a scrape of wood against stone, Juliet pulled out the chair Adora had vacated and sat down. She crossed her arms and stared levelly at the former Horde commander. Catra’s ears flattened, and her claws dug into her legs underneath the table. This had happened...a lot...in the weeks since the Heart of Etheria. It still wasn’t any easier. Every two or three days, someone would corner Catra and make it their business to inform her in great detail what the Horde had done to them personally. She usually didn’t say much. Just listened to what they had to say—the Horde burned my farm, conquered my village, killed my brother, ransacked my kingdom, destroyed my life—and apologized. Sometimes it satisfied them. Usually, it just made them angrier.“At the Battle of Alwyn….” Catra braced herself. “How did you know I was concealing reinforcements behind the ridge?” She blinked. That wasn’t…...exactly what she’d been expecting.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Juliet
Comments: 33
Kudos: 213





	Professionals, Not Princesses

“Force Captain Catra?” The voice wasn’t at all loud, but it still managed to cut through the background hum and buzz of Bright Moon’s Great Hall at lunch time with ease. A voice of command, meant to be heard through the clash of arms and the din of onset. So Catra wasn’t particularly surprised to look up and see General Juliet looming over. She managed to turn a reflexive grimace into a raised eyebrow and a simple

“Hmmm?” The commander of the Bright Moon Royal Guard gestured to the chair across from hers.

“May I?” she asked. Underneath the table, Catra’s claws dug into her legs, but her voice was steady as she replied.

“Of course.” This had happened a lot in the weeks since the Heart of Etheria. It still wasn’t any easier. Every two or three days, someone would corner Catra—at a diplomatic reception, during a reconstruction mission, at a meal, in the library—and make it their business to inform her in great detail what the Horde had done to them personally. They were careful never to do it when Adora was around, she’d noticed. They were scared of pissing off the person who’d _personally scoured Horde Prime from the Universe_ obviously, but it was still a relief. The only thing she could imagine being worse than these conversations would be hearing Adora try and defend the indefensible. As it was, she didn’t say much. Just listened to what they had to say— _the Horde burned my farm, conquered my village, killed my brother, ransacked my kingdom, destroyed my life_ —and apologized. Sometimes it satisfied them. Usually, it just made them angrier. With a scrape of wood against stone, Juliet pulled out the chair Adora had vacated to go and get them another helping and sat down. She crossed her arms and stared levelly at the former Horde commander. Catra’s ears flattened.

“At the Battle of Alwyn….” Catra braced herself. “How did you know I was concealing reinforcements behind the ridge?” She blinked. That wasn’t…...exactly what she’d been expecting.

“What?” Juliet shrugged.

“Bow says he shot down every drone you had in position to do any long-range scouting, and I let Mermista run a full counter-intelligence investigation into my command that turned up _nothing_. So, how’d you know? Lucky guess?” Catra shook her head.

“I….no? It was…...you were too confident.” Juliet waved her hand in a ‘go on’ gesture. “Your troops attacked us, but then when they retreated, they—you know, they didn’t retreat like they were really retreating. I could tell it wasn’t real.” She wasn’t explaining this properly, couldn’t express the _certainty_ she had felt on the battlefield watching the rebel soldiers fall back, seeing the line of their maneuver and understanding the ramifications. With a little wordless growl, she grabbed her plate and pushed it towards Juliet’s side of the table, then added the salt and pepper shakers on top of it. She grabbed her mug and Adora’s half-empty glass of juice and shoved them to the middle of the table, pushed her utensils over to Juliet, and artfully draped a napkin in a winding pattern next to the plate. Juliet gave her a bemused look.

“Well, so your troops launched an attack like this” Catra said, grabbing the knife and fork and pulling them towards her mug and glass. “But there wasn’t enough of them to really break through, right? No princesses, no heavy artillery, and we had armor and bot support. So, you fell back.” Juliet nodded.

“Seems reasonable.”

“The _problem_ ” Catra continued “was that your retreat was too…...orderly. Too neat.” She pulled back the Princess Alliance formations, moving her mug into pursuit. “They retreated in perfect order, without losing their formation. And they went in this _weird_ direction”. She pointed to the napkin. “If they were really scared, they’d have run into the Whispering Woods. Half my troops would have refused to follow. But instead, they marched in a straight line—right towards that hill.” The utensils slid back, falling past the plate. “A hill that _happened_ to be the only major terrain obstacle for, like, five leagues around. So, when you launched your ‘surprise counterattack’” She picked up the salt and pepper shakers, moved them off the plate and up behind the mug “I was already waiting for it.” Adora’s juice glass slid into place, blocking the attack. The condiment dispensers fled in disorder, and the mug occupied the hill. Juliet scowled.

“You were _supposed_ to be so busy chasing my fleeing troops that you didn’t even think about the possibility of a flank attack.” Catra’s ears flicked.

“It…...it wasn’t a bad plan” she said. “But if you’re going to go for the feigned retreat it has to look _real_.”

“Once you get soldiers to _start_ running and breaking formation it’s not exactly easy to get them to stop” pointed out Juliet.

“It’s a hard tactic to pull off. Easy for it to get out of hand and turn into a real rout but if it doesn’t look like one…” Catra shrugged. “Then it’s just stupid.” She winced, wondering if she’d gone too far, but Juliet just sighed, resting her chin on her hand.

“I guess I should have known better—they say never to try the same trick twice but it worked _so well_ at Raven’s Pass that I thought for sure—” Catra jumped.

“Wait, wait, is that _what_ you pulled there?!” Her voice rose, and her ears flattened in embarrassment as several nearby courtiers looked at her curiously.

“Well, yeah. I assumed you knew?” asked Juliet.

“Nobody from Force Captain Grizzlor’s division actually made it home from Raven’s Pass” she noted drily. “So, no. I did not.” Juliet smiled thinly.

“Ah. Well.” She snagged a plate from the table behind her, arranged it with Catra’s to form a narrow corridor. She moved the two cups to one end of it, arranged the shakers on top of the plates with the utensils. She tapped Catra’s mug with the knife. “See, your boys and girls had camped out here after the first day of fighting, when they pushed us back over the Singing River. So, I launched an attack on their base early in the morning, right before dawn.”

“Yeah, the report on that was the last communication we got from them. But even Grizzlor should have known enough to fortify his damn campsite!”

“Oh, don’t worry, he did. Trenches and bastions and barbed wire and all that. We didn’t try and break through though.” She drummed a tattoo against the mug with the knife. “We just kept hitting the outer defenses over and over and _over_ again—” Catra moaned, her nervousness forgotten in her instinctive frustration. 

“Don’t tell me, you got him all riled up and he sent the whole army chasing after you without doing any scouting.”

“Yup.” The knife slid back between the two plates, the mug following. “The moron basically just pulled his troops out of bed and tried to run us over. We, of course, fled from his fearsome and terrible wrath.” Juliet’s eyes widened in faux-fear, and Catra snorted. “So, they pursue, we run away, and they follow us into Raven’s Pass. Then, when his rearguard had passed the second curve of the canyon….” The salt and pepper shakers slid in behind the advancing Horde army “…...we dropped troops into the gorge and cut them off. Just a mop-up operation after that.” Catra frowned, and jabbed her claw at the table.

“How many troops did you have? Our intelligence suggested that it was just three brigades of volunteers, maybe a few companies of Bright Moon guards and a sorcerer or two. I wouldn’t have sent Grizzlor in without more support otherwise.” Juliet nodded. 

“That sounds about right.”

“Then he should’ve been able to hold off you off until reinforcements arrived, even trapped in Raven’s Pass. Unless—oh _shit_ , did he—”

“Try and break out? You bet he did. Turned his men around and tried to ram right through. We caught him a crossfire from both sides of the canyon, hammered the entire force to pieces.” Juliet smirked, and flipped the mug upside-down. “Then we poured out of the pass, captured Fort Skull and were halfway to the Bloody River before anyone noticed.” She maneuvered her cutlery forces out from between the two plates and slide them across the table towards Catra, who hissed with some asperity.

“I remember _that_ part” she grumbled. “I was _this_ close to seizing that cache of First Ones tech under Talon Mountain when I got the call that an entire rebel attack force was sixty leagues behind our front lines and we had nothing in its path but supply dumps and support troops and that I had to run home and try and pull things together. What a mess that was.”

“Do you expect me to apologize?” asked Juliet with a grin. Catra laughed.

“I guess not.”

“You handled it well though” commented the general, tapping the table with one finger. “I thought we were going to get a lot farther than we did, maybe even all the way to Hordeopolis before Hordak could muster enough troops to really stop us. I didn’t count on you popping up on my left flank and ripping it to shreds.”

“I got lucky” said Catra, waving vaguely. “You were too eager to outrace me to the river, there was a hole in your scouts’ formation—and I took a chance. Could just as easily have been a bloodbath if I guessed wrong.”

“You realize you don’t have to tell people that part, right? If you’ll accept some advice from a more experienced colleague—” Juliet paused, and Catra nodded. “Never once did I tell the Queen ‘Oh, I only won that battle because the enemy screwed it all up and I made a lucky guess.’ It’s always ‘Due to my sagacious strategizing and unsurpassed brilliance, our valiant forces have achieved yet another glorious victory Your Majesty’.” The Bright Moon general was smiling, but Catra’s ears flattened, and she looked away. Juliet frowned. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“No, no, I’m sorry, it’s just—” Catra paused, her tail lashing. Juliet sat patiently, waiting. “It’s just that—that’s how I used to have to report everything to Shadow Weaver or Hordak. Back then I mean.” _Manipulating, lying, distorting, twisting. Every victory solely because of her. Every defeat somebody else’s fault. Always trying to anticipate what she’d need to say to justify her existence that particular day._ “I’m trying to be better about that kind of thing now.” Juliet looked confused for a minute, then swore.

“ _Shit_ , I’m sorry Force Captain, I didn’t mean it like that—”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it” snapped Catra with a wave. She hated it when people apologized to her. Silence fell, Juliet seemingly content to sit quietly and wait for Catra to find her thoughts. She gazed at the panoply of ersatz armies and formations scattered across their table, and gave Juliet a searching look. “You’re…...very calm about all this” she said finally.

“I see no reason we can’t have a reasonably civilized discussion about our work.” 

“Not _my_ work anymore” said Catra. “But…...I take your point.”

“Do…...do you want it to be?” asked Juliet, cocking her head to the side and giving Catra a look like a hunting falcon that’s spotted a hare. “The Royal Guard can always use experienced officers.” Catra stared.

“Are you offering me a job?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Well, _I don’t know_ , maybe the fact that I spent the last three years as commander of the army that was trying to conquer your country!”

“But you’re not doing that anymore.” The general’s lips quirked in response to Catra’s expression. “Look, we’re professionals, not princesses. I fulfilled my oaths to the Queen, as I was sworn to do. You did your duty to your commanding officers, as you saw fit. I can respect that. Besides—I’ve spent enough time fighting against you, that I think I’d much rather fight _with_ you next time.” Catra snorted.

“That’s fair. Was this why you came over here to begin with?”

“No. I just wanted to know how you won the Battle of Alwyn! It’s been bothering me for _years_. But the offer stands.”

“I’ll…...think about it. I’m not sure that I want to keep being a soldier.” Juliet nodded.

“I understand. But keep it in mind. Take it from me, you were _very_ good at it.” The former Force Captain grinned.

“You’re not bad yourself, General”. The other woman held out a hand.

“Please, call me Juliet.”

“Then it’s Catra. I haven’t been a Force Captain in a while now.” She reached out over the table and shook it.

* * *

Adora squeezed past some guards and a pair of footmen, triumphantly holding her heaping plates of food aloft like a tribal champion lugging home the God-image of their enemies.

“Sorry I took so long!” she said, approaching the table where she’d left her girlfriend. “They were out of pancakes and then while I was waiting, I got into a talk with Glimmer about trying to maybe open diplomatic relations with some of those former Horde tributary states over in the Mountains of Darkness—she wants to talk to you about that later by the way—and then they brought out more pancakes and then Bow took them all while I was talking to Glimmer so I had to wait for them to make _more_ pancakes and then they ran out of those fried fish things you like and—” she trailed off, and cocked her head with a frown. This was not how she’d left things. General Juliet had appropriated her chair, and she and Catra were both looming over the table. One of them had appropriated a breadbasket from somewhere. Turned upside-down, it was crowned with a brigade of cutlery and condiments. Napkins spread out around it, tracing a curving line down the tabletop. A convoy of rolls and biscuits stretched down it, bypassing several pieces of dinnerware. Catra looked up and smiled.

“Hey Adora! Just give us a minute, ok?”

“Um….ok?” General Juliet gave her a firm nod.

“Greetings Adora.”

“Uh….hi.” Juliet always made her a little nervous. She pulled up another chair, found some unoccupied table space to park her burdens, and watched warily as Catra jabbed her claws at the tableau spread out before them.

“Right, so we’d taken Salineas, GaleBreath, Kairith” she said, gesturing at an upturned plate and a pair of mugs. “We controlled the sea, we’d smashed the Royal Navy, and my rapid assault force was closing in on Seaworthy—”

“You should have stopped after Kairith for rest and resupply” broke in Juliet.

“I needed to maintain the initiative! That was the biggest breakthrough in fifty years, I wasn’t about to slow down and let you start regrouping!”

“Don’t be silly. What does it matter if you have the ‘initiative’ if your tanks are all out of fuel and ammo?” She tapped one of the rolls critically. “Seaworthy is three hundred leagues from Salineas, it’s only ninety from Bright Moon. There was no way you could have arrived there before my reinforcements did no matter _how_ fast you moved.” Catra _hrumphed_. 

“If things, uhh, hadn’t gone the way they did, then I would have had four armored divisions within striking distance of the city within a week!”

“Where they would have been stuck until my fresh, _well-rested, well-supplied_ defenders finished them off.” Juliet speared the lead armored unit with a knife and took a bite out of it. “Honestly Catra, you know how important logistics are.” She added a little sourly. “Remember how you cut our iridium supply-lines two years ago? You knew it then.”

“That was different” grumbled Catra. Juliet raised an eyebrow. “ _This_ time I really wanted to win the war.”

“Well, I won’t complain about how it worked out, but you should think about this. Your breakthrough at Salineas was brilliant—and then you ruined it by letting your troops get spread out and overextended. The princesses couldn’t have done _nearly_ as much damage, even with Runestones balanced, if your forces were well-entrenched and resupplied. Remember that.” Catra stiffened, then nodded slowly.

“I will” she said. “Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ for indulging me. May we continue our conversation another time? It has been most enlightening. And please, think about my offer.”

“I’d like that.” Catra said softly. “And I will.” Juliet rose, plucked another tank battalion from the table, nodded good-bye, and strode off towards the door, presumably to do Important Tasks.

“Sorry about that” Catra said, pulling one of the plates towards her.

“Not a problem” said Adora, kissing her check. Catra flushed, as warmth flooded through her. She still couldn’t believe sometimes how—how casual Adora could be about affection. How open. Like there was nothing to hide or be ashamed of. “But what was that all about?”

“Oh, she wanted to ask some questions about the War. My side of things, ya know? We were discussing tactics and strategy and logistics—that kind of stuff.”

“Sounds fun?”

“It was……nice. She understands what it was like, being in command. I haven’t really been able to talk about that to anyone." Adora beamed, and shook Catra by her shoulder.

“You’re making _friends_!” she squealed. Catra rolled her eyes, the paused.

“Yeah” she said. “I guess I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- I really like the trope of commanders from opposite sides of a war bonding over the mutual admiration for each other and I wanted to play around with that. 
> 
> \- Are all of my stories going to be about Catra as commander of an army? Yes. Yes they are.


End file.
